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Galaxies are vast, but they can indeed crash into each other due to gravity. These aren't usually star-on-star impacts, but rather a slow merging or passing through. The story describes a head-on collision between our Milky Way and a dwarf galaxy called Gaia Sausage, which caused a significant reorientation of our galaxy's disc.
Stories that explain this
Milky Way's flip: A 10-billion-year-old dwarf galaxy collisionRelated explainers
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